Fell
by tinkertoy
Summary: The creation of a Malkavian antitribu: A young lunatic is claimed for the Sword of Cain after a busy night. Rated PG-13 for some gore.


Introduction: Well, here it is. My first fanfic. It's actually the backstory for my Malkavian antitribu I play in a LARP,   
but I think it turned out pretty well so I'm sharing. Feel free to comment.   
  
Disclaimer: Vampire: the Masquerade(tm) and other various trademarks of White Wolf (tm) are obviously not mine.   
I wrote this purely for entertainment value and I'm broke anyway so there's no need to sue *bg*   
  
Fell   
by tinkertoy (lunaromen@hotmail.com)  
  
_ Walk. _  
  
She stumbled off the curb, then shuffled across the street. She noticed it was a shuffle, not a walk, so she lengthened her   
steps. She stared down at her sandaled feet, furrowing her forehead, concentrating. She jerked her feet back occasionally,   
cutting her stride short to stay on the smooth cement of the sidewalk, avoiding the cracks. You never knew when one would   
open up and try to gulp you down.   
  
Something thumped her shoulder and she looked up as a trench coat disappeared around the corner. Trench coat. Trench.   
A furrow. A one-point hole stretched into the first dimension. A line a plow makes in the field to grow corn in. Corn. Food.   
  
Her stomach chuckled at her. Light flickered on her left and she looked. The television in the window flagged her down and   
she meandered over.   
  
_ Story at eleven. _   
  
She checked her watch. No watch. She remembered, it was on her wrist before, but not now. She frowned. Did she have   
a watch? What was she looking for?   
  
_ Story at eleven. _   
  
Story. A tale, a narrative that tells a fiction, or a lie. Lies on TV. Again. Story. Floor of a building. Eleven. Story. Eleven   
story building. She looked up.   
  
One, two, three. Three stories. Not eleven. Across the street. One there, two there. Six total. Not eleven. She frowned.   
Eleven stories? In Tomah? How many fables did Aesop tell? Was she thinking this wrong?   
  
Something brushed her neck and she whipped around. The same faint touch whispered across her cheek as she turned. Were   
they back? No. The wind said hello. That was all. Those weren't fingers. Just hairs. Hair. Not hands. Hair.   
  
Better get moving anyway.   
  
She bared her teeth, the corners of her mouth turned up at the television. Smiling. Message received. Okay. Leaving now.   
She dashed down the street, back the way she'd come. That'd throw them off.   
  
_ Two for one! Tonight only!!! _   
  
Two. For one. Two what? For what one? Who? She veered off the walk, brushed past the dumpster and crouched down   
behind a stack of crates. Two. Two eyes, one face? Two holes in one nose? Two ears? Two lips? She fumbled at her face.   
Then she knew. Two. Two hands.   
  
There was something warm, sticky on her palms. Palms, palm trees, with coconuts, did they come with nuts? Chocolate nuts?   
Peanuts? Chocolate was sticky when it melted. Didn't smell like chocolate. Tasted strange. A little metal-y. But warm. It   
stuck to her fingers, as she smeared it thin it dried and hardened into a soft carapace, like skin on a sausage. She waggled her   
fingers, marveling. Her cheeks were starting to stiffen.   
  
Somebody stared at her from the corner. He was tucked into a ball in the shadows next to the rain barrel. Something dark   
spread at his feet, a big puddle like oil.   
  
She glared into the corner, engaging him in a staring contest. She held her eyes open until they felt like sandpaper. Then she   
blinked. Shecouldn't see his eyes. He didn't move.   
  
She reached out slowly with one hand, then put weight on it. She followed with the other, then with each foot, crawling slowly   
towards him. He didn't move. No snores, no breaths. Just sitting. Her right hand landed in more of the warm sticky stuff.   
She ignored it.   
  
She pulled up close, her nose brushing his chin. She noticed why she couldn't see his eyes-they weren't there. She blinked.   
She crouched in front of him. That was careless, to lose your eyes like that. You can't see without eyes. She shoved her hands   
in her coat pockets and felt something soft give way under her fingers.   
  
Oh. Now she remembered.   
  
Her hands drew out of her pockets, wiped themselves on the coat. Not her coat. Whose coat? Was it his? She pulled it off   
and dropped it in front of him, in the puddle. He could see now, he didn't need a coat, but it could be his and it was wrong to steal.   
She wrapped her fingers around the chain-links of the fence and pulled herself up, scrambled to the top, fell to the ground on the   
other side. Two. For one. Two hands for one… him?   
  
_ Tonight only!!! _   
  
She slowly righted herself, watching ahead and behind for them. They could return at any time, touching and poking and pulling   
and tearing… she bit down on her tongue. Stop it. Stop, stop, stop. Run. Run.   
  
She ran. She tripped over a beer bottle and it was flung across the alley to crack against the brick wall. She stopped.   
  
Somebody was watching her from the mouth of the alley. A tall someone, with a wide-brimmed hat and shocks of white hair   
sticking out from under it. He had a long coat on, the kind Bogey wore, what were they called? Ditch jackets? Yellow jackets.   
Nasty waspy bees that stung you all over and made big red bumps and swoll you up everywhere and you gotta be pasted up like   
Laura Ingalls' cousin screaming stinging big puffy sausagey handshandshandshands….   
  
No, a trench coat.   
  
He was giggling. She could barely hear it over the buzzing whispers. They were coming. She could hear them. She looked   
around frantically, looking for an escape. The man held out his arms and she froze. He had hands at the end of them. Her   
eyes bulged as he stepped forward. First he was way out by the sidewalk. Then he was standing over her, hands on her shoulders.   
  
He giggled some more. He had bad breath. He giggled again when she said so and opened his mouth up wide. Shiny, shiny   
pointy teeth. They came down and he ducked to her neck. His hands let go and she sighed in relief. Then he pierced her skin   
and she fell.   
  
  
  
_ Felicia… _   
  
Giggling again. It was dark. Something glowed at the corners. She opened her eyes. More giggling.   
  
_ Felicia _   
  
Felicia? Fell? She remembered falling. Felicia. Felicity. Happiness. She tried on a smile. Didn't fit so she put it back.   
  
There he was again, standing over her. She frowned. She was lying down in a drawer. There were lots of other drawers   
there too. A giant filing cabinet. Was she in an office? She was filed. Under F? Did they know her name?   
  
He grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled her up. She rolled out of the drawer, protesting. Somebody'd went to a lot of trouble   
to file her away properly. He seemed insistent. He pulled on her arm, mumbling something, so she followed.   
  
It was still dark. Dark again? Or still? She shook her head and it cleared up a little. Who was he? Where were they   
going? _  
  
Local Asylum Reports Missing Inpatient   
  
Body of Family Triple-Murder Suspect Found in Alley   
  
Daughter of Deceased District Judge's Body Found Near Blaine's Bar 'n Grill   
  
Accused Killer Believed Dead of Blood Loss, Victim Found Nearby _  
  
The wall was plastered with headlines. Was that her? Her throat cut open, no blood except on her clothes and face   
but that wasn't hers, glazed eyes staring. Was she dead?   
  
She looked down at herself. She was standing. Moving. Not breathing. She put her finger on her neck and pressed.   
No heartbeat. Dead.   
  
Well, that proved her theory, anyway.   
  
The man pushed at her with his hand. She glared at him. She didn't like being touched. His hands, something about   
hands, they just bothered her. Didn't like 'em touching her. He reached to push again, muttering something gleefully,   
but she stepped away before he could touch her. Bastard. No touching.   
  
He chuckled and waved her at the door. She let him follow her out, though she watched him over her shoulder. He   
picked up a shovel as he walked through the doorway. She narrowed her eyes and stared at him.   
  
Down the street and across, and there was the cemetery. Climb over the fence, he jumped over after. Still behind   
with the shovel. She was getting nervous.   
  
He took the lead and pulled her with his eyes now. Better than hands anyway. She trotted after him to a patch of   
ground at the far side, where there were no graves. He handed her the shovel.   
  
_ Dead people need graves. _   
  
True.   
  
She dug. She dug a wide hole six feet deep, long enough for a coffin, deep enough to satisfy him. He chuckled and   
muttered to himself as she dug. After a while he gave her the shovel. It went faster then. He left for a while, then came   
back with a coffin. Just a pine box, but she was pretty poor so that was okay.   
  
When she was done he hauled her out and stared at the hole. He dropped the hammer and bag of nails he was holding,   
flung the uncovered box into the hole. She gave him the shovel back.   
  
He yammered about a sword and sugar cane and books nodding for a while. She couldn't follow it. He stopped and   
stared intently into the hole. She followed his gaze. There was a scattering of dirt in the coffin. She looked at it more closely.  
Her eyes felt more there. The dirt felt more there. She could see it so well she smelled it, every detail glaring out at her so   
hard she was almost blinded.   
  
She didn't see him pick up the shovel.   
  
  
  
Dark. Cold, dark, closed in, trapped, clawing, shoving digging screaming howling crawling climbing   
  
Wind. There was wind. Still dark. Or dark again. Or it was always dark. Dark like under stars and between the moon   
and it was everywhere dark. She could see. See now. Her vision lost its clouds. The dark, it was everywhere.   
  
Noises behind the tree. She crawled around. He was sitting there, sucking on something large. It had two legs, two arms,   
one head. Oh. A person. He noticed her crouched behind the tree and dropped the person. He pulled her there with his   
eyes. He pointed at the person, said something. She ignored him and latched onto its neck. She was hungry.   
  
After a while she wasn't. The person was out of blood anyway. They dumped it in the hole and covered it up. They had   
to fool the ground, make it think she was still in there. It didn't say anything so it must've worked.   
  
  
  
Under the overpass. Under an over. Over… were the cars up there over an under? Over the rainbow, under the sky   
way up high?   
  
Vaklai took off his hat and wiped it off. He was having trouble getting the stains out. He didn't seem to care but it bothered   
people to see dried blood on someone's hat so he tried to be accommodating. Fell didn't care, herself. He called her that. Fell.   
'Cause she fell and had to dig herself up again. She didn't care. A name is a name it just led them to her quicker but nothing to   
do about that.   
  
Cain had a sword in La Crosse. A pack of cig… no, wolves… no, …people… sort of… like her, they'd also been hit in the   
head with shovels. Vaklai said so. He'd heard about 'em and told her and told her to go see. Look and watch and share the   
dark and he'd stay there. He had to keep an eye on the marquee. He said it was sending subliminal messages for people to   
breed rats with silicon blood and he had to stop it.   
  
Last instructions. Remember the sugar cane. Malkav's present for everybody. Not everybody got it so they had to share what   
they saw. Vaklai wanted to hide it, said it was dangerous, but she knew. It had to be taught so they could find more of it themselves.   
Show them everything, take away it all. Show them nothing. Do it all but don't. She nodded. He always gave good advice.   
  
He was still talking but it was about toast so it wasn't that important. Toast worried her and she wanted to leave toast talk behind.   
She climbed on her Harley and zoomed away. Vaklai stood there by the highway, still talking. After a few hours he noticed she   
was gone and went home. Who was that nice girl, anyway? 


End file.
